Pages

Monday, May 26, 2014

Back in January, I shared with you some inspiration for one of my besties baby shower. The event was held in April and I only just realised I still had photos on my camera (not the best quality because it is our spare camera – usually in my husbands ute!).

There were 3 of us involved in the process and it was a really lovely day with the Mum to be.

And now I am on tender hooks as I wait by the phone for the ‘baby has arrived’ phone call!

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The first few months of the year have seen me designing a lot of rooms for the grown ups…..lots of Master Bedrooms & Living Rooms!

I love that everyone has very individual tastes and requirements!

This first design is still under going some changes and we’ve gone for a simpler colour pallet but I do love the brightness of this one.

This living room was designed for one of my oldest friends. Their current living room is quite dark and we needed to add a few touches of colour to the room but without tizzieness.

Do you love all the copper that’s around at the moment? I love the texture of the simple wallpaper.

My clients have a really lovely base already for their dining room/family area so it just needed some finishing touches.

If you follow me on facebook, you may have seen the progress shot my clients sent me for this one (and it’s looking fab!). We made a few changes to this design (art work is still a colourful option) and have a awesome lamp coming from Portugal (not shown).

I’ve got lots of little rooms to show you as well but we are still playing with some of them!

Monday, May 5, 2014

Over the weekend, I was involved with a fabulous discussion on instagram about the need for uniqueness – in this case, in little ones rooms. Everyone involved was on the same page and I thought there were many great points brought up, so I wanted to share some of them with you.

Here’s the deal, I (we) am pretty tired of seeing the same products used in the same way over and over again. I TOTALLY get that there are ‘it’ products throughout every month of every year. There are beautiful products which you will see in so many images (in particular on instagram) of so many different people, that the thing is…..it gets a bit boring. You loose the individuality.

I love that as a kids designer, I’m providing inspiration to lots of people……Mums & Dad’s that don’t necessarily use my services, but appreciate design and want their little ones rooms to look awesome. But what is important to me, is to stress the fact that you don’t want a cookie cutter room…….one size does not fit all.

When I’m designing a room for my own babies or your babies, I want their room to be as individual as they are. Do they like ice-cream? Do they love their pet dog? Are they AFL fans? I want to know about things they love, because it’s a way of really creating an individual room. Just. for. them.

Nikolas’ room incorporated the lion print, because he loves Richmond Tigers. The decals above the bed were included because of his parents love for NYC.

So what I want you to do, if you are in the process of creating a nursery; a big kids room; a teen room……really think about what they love (or in the case of a nursery, what you as a family love and is special to you). Just because you might see a room on pinterest or facebook or instagram that you really like the look of it, don’t aim to replicate. Take the elements you love and then add your special bits. The pieces or prints etc, that you know are going to turn into memory pieces.

Hugh & Charles gallery wall incorporated a rule print because I want them to grow up and be gentlemen. It also includes a tractor print which is their favourite tractor from our farm and the be strong and courageous as an inspiration piece.

Personally for my own kids, whenever I’ve started thinking about their nursery or bedroom, I think about what’s around now…….and then I go the opposite way. Hugh’s nursery was all about trees and owls, because at the time it wasn’t done (I’m talking 5 years ago). Charles’ nursery had a bold feature wall with red dotted through it and when it was time to create their shared room, triangle decals were just starting to come onto the scene and black wasn’t really done in kids rooms. My little ones rooms are about showing you something different, pushing the ‘norm’. And now that I’m in the process of designing my own final nursery, I’m doing that again. Thinking ‘what is common, what products are being used over and over again’.

Isabella love ballet, so we used some sweet ballerina prints above her bed.

I try not to use a product twice and I try to keep it quite budget friendly for my designs. It’s tricky, but that’s why clients hire me. I have about 2,500 cushions saved in my favourites file, I shudder to think about how many prints I have saved! Every single client, I go through these files and think about their brief and what suits them…..not what’s the hottest trend that I can make work in their room.

Design is something I love. I studied Interior Design & Decoration after year 12….kids interiors is not a business I fell into. I’ve been in the design ‘world’ for 14 years now – various aspects but aspects all the same!